


be alright

by saltywaves



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Kinda, Not Beta Read, Probably Not Scientifically Accurate, cinder does not get stabbed, kai becomes a cyborg, they’re probably out of character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27727412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltywaves/pseuds/saltywaves
Summary: In the final battle against Levana, Kai was severely hurt and the only way to save him is to make him a cyborg.
Relationships: Kai/Linh Cinder, Kaider - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	be alright

**KAI WAS DYING.** Cinder wasn’t sure how it happened. The memory was a blur in her mind and she had no desire to remember the whole thing, but during that final battle against Levana, his arm and head had been severely damaged.

Cinder was sure the guards had freaked out when they had walked in — it was not, of course, normal to run into the throne room to a wanted-criminal-turned-lost-princess to be leaning over their dying emperor, and that wasn’t even mentioning Thorne and Cress. Thorne was still being treated for his missing fingers (though his injury was nowhere near Kai’s), and Cress was in a suspended animation tank to heal.

Everyone else had barely been hurt — Scarlet had a concussion that she had already been treated for, Wolf was just a bit confused, Winter was still recovering from a mental breakdown relating to using her Lunar gift, Jacin was perfectly fine, and Iko just had wire damage.  
Which left nothing for Cinder to think about but Kai.

Kai, who had been the first person other than Peony and Iko to treat her like a human being.

Kai, who had noticed and wanted her despite being able to have any girl in the world.

Kai, who still loved her despite everything she’d done — lie to him, kidnap him, lead him into the room with Levana instead of forcing him to flee.

Kai, who was now dying and it was all her fault.

She knew, deep in her heart, that Kai was not going to make it. She could tell from the dejected looks of the guards who went to gather updates, from the worried looks of the doctors as they rushed from room to room.

Cinder rested her head in her hands, curling her fingers into her hair.

_Everyone she cared about was gone._

Okay, maybe it wasn’t true — she still had her friends — but still. She had lost her original life — her leg, her hand — she had lost her adoptive father, who had actually cared about her, she had lost Peony, she had thought she’d lost Iko multiple times, she had thought she had lost Thorne and Scarlet and Wolf, and maybe she was going to lose Cress.

And now she was going to lose Kai, and she wasn’t sure she could handle it. She felt like she was one crack away from breaking, one glitch away from shutting down, one step away from tumbling into oblivion.

She didn’t even notice the comforting hand on her shoulder.

It felt like hours had gone by — and maybe they had — when a doctor entered the waiting room. Cinder whipped her head up, but hope soon faded away when she saw the doctor’s expression. Hopeless. Dejected. Heartbroken.

Finding her voice, Cinder asked, “He’s not going to make it, is he?”

Everyone seemed surprised that she had spoken, but it quickly faded when the doctor answered with, “We’ve done everything we can.”

Words that were supposed to be comforting but never were.

Torin sighed, and shakily rose. “Are you sure you can’t do anything else? Anything at all?”

“The damage is too severe. Even if we could do something about his arm, there’s still his brain . . .”

“So remove his arm,” Cinder said like it was the obvious answer, and maybe it was. “Give him a cyborg arm. And fix any brain damage too.”

The doctor blinked. “Do we have the authority to do that?”

Cinder stood. “I am Princess Selene, soon to be Queen of this rock. We have to at least try. Better know we did _absolutely everything_ we could do and it didn’t work than live knowing we could have done more and didn’t.”

The doctor gaped at her, then remembered who she was talking to, and nodded. Cinder had the feeling she wanted to bow, but she was glad she didn’t. “Yes, Your Highness, but we may not have enough time. He may die before anyone qualified to do that gets here, and there’s no one on Luna that can. They’d have to come from Earth.”

Torin nodded. “I’ll make some calls.”

—

 **KAI WOKE UP** confused. Which wasn’t anything new, but he felt _different_ somehow.  
For one, he was pretty sure he was supposed to be dead. When he had lost consciousness on the throne room floor, his last thought had been that they had succeeded, and he’d been able to see Cinder one last time.

Cinder, alive and well.

Secondly, his weight seemed oddly focused to his right side, uneven.

Kai opened his eyes, squinting against the bright light. He was in a hospital room. Crisp whit walls, crisp white sheets, beeping machines indicating his health, and a probably sleep deprived girlfriend snoring away in the visitors chair pulled up next to the bed, holding onto his hand. His right hand.

He rolled over and nudged Cinder’s knee.

And seeing why his weight felt oddly distributed. Was his arm . . . metal? That was definitely his arm, right? He wasn’t hallucinating?

“You like it?”

Kai glanced up. Cinder was searching his face, but for what, he didn’t know. Kai was pretty sure she had tears in her eyes — which was impossible, so he decided he was just hallucinating. “It’s new. I wasn’t expecting to wake up a cyborg. I wasn’t expecting to wake up at all, actually.”

Cinder smiled, bittersweet. “It was my idea. You were going to die, but I thought, well, better be a cyborg than be dead, right? You don’t mind, do you?”

Kai squeezed her hand — or, tried to, since he wasn’t sure how to work his cyborg limb. Cinder understood what he was trying to do, and squeezed his hand. He felt nothing. “I don’t mind. It’s perfect, actually. Is the hand all?”

Cinder shook her head. “You have a portscreen in your head. It wasn’t necessary to fix whatever damage there was, but we thought it might be useful.”

Now that she mentioned it, Kai did notice the signs of a portscreen. There was a clock stating that it was currently 8 a.m., but there was also a tab for coms and a search page and for documents. It looked practically like his old portscreen, which he guessed was the point.

Kai scrunched up his nose. “I don’t know how you handle it. That’s . . . really distracting.”

Cinder laughed. “You can send it away.”

“Please help me.”

“You just have to think of what you want to be sent away, I guess. It’s similar to mine, actually, so I can help you figure out your new found cyborg-ness. You’re more deserving of it than Thorne.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s thinking of replacing his three missing fingers with cyborg fingers. Nothing life changing really, but he’s dramatic.”

“That sounds like him.”

“He’s also making a Missing Fingers Club, and has offered you an invitation, if you’d like to accept.”

“I would be _honored_.”

The two burst into laughter, and right then, both knew everything would be alright. Kai had lived. He would continue to rule the Eastern Commonwealth. Cinder would rule Luna — for a time, anyway. Kai would adjust to being a cyborg. The rift between Earth and Luna would heal.  


Everything would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re interested, follow my tumblr, @shellyseashell


End file.
